Chancey of the Maury River (23 page)

Claire and Mother still agree that though Claire’s talent has surpassed my own, we are family and will remain bound forever. Now that Claire is away, studying at a university at the edge of the blue mountains, Mother comes most often to hold me for the farrier or pull my mane. These days, sleep comes easiest to me when my mane is being pulled. I can smell when it’s Mother coming up behind me. She always carries a stud biscuit in her pocket. Mother’s skin smells cleaner than the sweat and grain that Mrs. Maiden wears on her skin. Even if I could not recognize Mother from the smell of her skin, I would know her by the way she sneaks around my face and reaches above my cheek to kiss me.

She speaks quietly to me. “Oh, I love this soft silky spot. That’s my spot.” She presses her lips deep into my head the same as she has always done.

Claire continues to visit me as her school schedule allows. When she comes home, she takes such an interest in grooming me herself that I confess there are times when I indulge in rolling deep into a briar patch without fear of being admonished. Claire still seems especially content to pull the briars out of my forelock, as she has done for so many years now. She is unfazed by my blindness. Where once she came to me, a small child with a big spirit who needed the mounting block to reach my mane, Claire now stands eye to eye with me.

Those days when Claire comes home fill me with joy! Claire still tacks me up in the same way she has done for what must be ten years now, for the new dentist recently observed that I am in my early thirties. In the ring, Claire guides me surely through my paces, keeping her calves tight on me, holding me up, and guiding me on. She likes to reassure me, “I’ve got you, Chancey. I’ve got you.” Then, together, we pop over a tiny fence; it still feels as if we are each other’s wings.

After warming up in the ring, Claire asks me, “Whaddya say, Chance? Are you up for a nice gallop through the mountains?” She does not wait for me to nicker, though I always do. Claire takes off the saddle and rides me bareback across the Maury River, up the right bank, and into the blue mountains. When I feel her ask for the canter with a light squeeze, I wait until Claire whispers two words before giving in.

“Yah, boy,” she tells me softly. “Yah, boy!” she yells into the wind.

Though I can no longer see any of the trail before me, the eye of my heart sees perfectly well — just as clearly as if I had never been marked by this cancer. I can see Claire in her overalls, tenderly reaching the mask around my eyes to protect them from the sun. I can see the moment that changed me — forever.

Shortly after my arrival at the Maury River Stables, Claire had reached out to touch my marred face. I stood before her. I was malnourished, soiled, and nearly used up. I had wanted to save her from loving me and being disappointed. I know now that Claire loved me the very second that I loved her, and so she already knew everything about me that she needed to know. What she did not yet know she would come to accept with a greater compassion toward me than I ever thought possible, except, perhaps, from my own dam. Claire would not leave me to feel sorry for myself; Claire would continue to love me.

She never saw me as the castoff that I had become, abandoned in a field. Instead, she saw the horse that I was born to be, the great horse that the stars foretold on the night of my birth. Yet more than the stars could ever have predicted, I know that if I have been made great, at all, it is due entirely to the prayers of Dam and the love of Claire. So here I will stand, facing Saddle Mountain, listening for the whisper of Claire’s return, and offering back all that I am now able, an infinite thanksgiving for this truly blessed life I have lived.

Thanks, Lance, for not shooting the albino buck in Cartersville. Thank you, Penny Ross, the Glenmore Hunt, Rhodes Farm at Wintergreen, the Stables at the Homestead, and Deb Sensabaugh of Virginia Mountain Outfitters for offering breathtaking hacks through the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains. Thanks to Kathy, Judith, Elizabeth, and Rebecca for taking me on my first hunter pace and encouraging me to let Albert run. JEA, here’s to our pretty fourth-place ribbon! Never has research been so invigorating! For teaching me about therapeutic riding: Kathy Pitt of Smooth Moves in Powhatan, Virginia, and Sue Alvis of Ride On in Glen Allen. Small programs like these, all over the country, perform miracles every day with incredibly dedicated volunteers and devoted horses.

Thank you to the brilliant horsewomen — Judith Amateau, Gail Bird Necklace, Kate Fletcher, Beth Lindsay, and Jennifer Wright, DVM — and brilliant readers — Leigh Amateau, Deanna Boehm, Cindy Ford, Mary Ellis Gregg, Mary Kiger, Maggie Menard, Betty Sanderson, and Amy Strite — who read, and improved on, an early manuscript. Thank you to Mrs. Ford, librarian, and the talented writers of the Guild of Youth Authors at Midlothian Middle School in Midlothian, Virginia. Thank you to the Irvine/Grue family of House Mountain Inn in Lexington, Virginia, for their hospitality and mountain retreat, perfect for imagining Chancey and Claire.

Thank you, my agent, Leigh Feldman, of Darhansoff, Verrill, & Feldman, who made me promise never to write “Neigh!” (Did I keep the promise? Yes!) Always, thank you to my Key West godparents: Judy, David, and Mark, for their gracious, generous time and friendship.

Candlewick Press rocks! I love all y’all: Brittany Duncan, Kate Fletcher, Sherry Fatla, Sharon Hancock, Anne Irza-Leggatt, Caroline Lawrence, Tracy Miracle, Chris Paul, Nicole Raymond, Jennifer Roberts, Charlie Schroder, Elise Supovitz, Ginny Wallace (hi, Ginny!), and most especially, Karen Lotz, collaborator extraordinaire. K — every second with you and this book has been exactly, perfectly wonderful. I had so much fun — thank you! (Also, very important: Karen, I just don’t think I would have met
my boy
Ray had it not been for you. SI.)

I give major props to Bubba — my best friend, my true love — for supporting Judith’s and my passion for all things equine. Back at you on all things bovine, baby!

Most of all thank you to King Albert, our albino Appaloosa witch, and my daughter, Judith, a truly gifted writer and creative partner. I love you.

GIGI AMATEAU
lives in Virginia, where she and her family have two horses: Albert, a cremello Appaloosa gelding who served half of his life as a school horse in certified therapeutic riding programs, and Mia, a Thoroughbred rescue mare who loves to jump. Gigi Amateau is the author of
Claiming Georgia Tate
and
A Certain Strain of Peculiar,
both novels for older teens. About
Chancey of the Maury River,
she says, “The infinite bond between my daughter, Judith, and our horse Albert inspired this story, as did Rockbridge County, Virginia. Judith, Albert, and I love to ride there in the surrounding Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains.”